The present invention relates to crafts such as knitting and crocheting, and more particularly to devices and methods for managing supplies of yarn or thread being used in manual stitching of stranded material.
Holders for crochet thread are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,174,637 to Stupfell, 1,290,577 to Kinney, and 1,505,623 to Burton. Similar devices for yarn are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,278,528 to Van Rensselaer, 2,536,931 to Harwood, 4,634,077 to Wilson, and 4,955,557 to Sewell et al. Typically, a post or spindle is vertically supported on a base for holding a spool or skein of stranded material, and a guide for the strand may be provided. The devices of the prior art have not been entirely satisfactory for a variety of reasons; for example:
1. Excessive and/or uneven force is required for feeding the strand; PA1 2. Yarn in skeins is subject to damage by insertion of a sharply pointed spindle therethrough in that the spindle can split strands of the yarn, a further consequence being that feeding of the strand beyond a point of separation is blocked by the spindle; PA1 3. The devices are ineffective for feeding complete skeins, even in the absence of damage from inserting the spindle, because there is little chance of inserting the spindle exactly through the center of a skein.
A further problem is that the holders of the prior art are inconvenient to use for winding the strand such as for restoring to the spool or skein played-out lengths of the strand that are not being immediately used.
Thus there is a need for a strand holding apparatus that provides for both cones and skeins uniformly low feeding resistance, being effective for dispensing complete skeins without damage thereto, that is easy to use for winding as well as feeding the strand, and that is inexpensive to produce.